


Offline Age

by lokidiabolus



Series: Modern Age [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alistair is very young here, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bad Puns, Cliche, F/M, Prequel to Online Age, Romance, Slow Build, Slow Burn, actually all of them are, no beta we die like men, overused tropes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 04:54:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17217377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lokidiabolus/pseuds/lokidiabolus
Summary: Alistair was never really a lone wolf or anything, but having a place only for himself had its appeal. He didn't plan on taking responsibility for anybody in upcoming years, until one fateful night his doorbell decided to wake him up at 2 AM and show him he was so, so wrong.ORHow Alistair subconsciously harbored mother hen tendencies towards completely unknown person in five minutes and then fell in love so hard it almost broke all bones in his body.





	1. Waterbender

**Author's Note:**

> I blame it all on the so called trailer for Dragon Age 4 that made me: 1) Feel the need to write for Dragon Age again; 2) Realize I left Online Age in disarray; 3) Re-read it and get horrified of the sheer absurdity of the middle part and so many absolutely pointless dialogues; 4) Spend a week editing it; 5) Start playing Dragon Age Inquisition again and romancing Cullen again; 6) Feel a heart ache when seeing King Alistair showing up in Redcliffe being flawless; and 7) Start to write randomly about him while playing Dragon Age Origins (because I hate myself. And Deep Roads).  
> So yeah, all the trailer's fault. And idk, I just really love Alistair, okay :(  
>  **Also a note** : so many tropes here. SO MANY.  
>  **And another note** : This is connected to **Online Age** , but it's sort of a prequel (aka about uh several years back, 5 or 10 or something), this time about (super young) Alistair and his one-day-to-be-wife-he-would-gush-about-to-everybody

It was precisely 2:12 AM, Alistair checked when Hell called, telling him they want their bad puns back. The coherence of apprehending the situation dropped to its lowest around midnight and dragged onward, he was glad he made his legs and arms cooperate enough to lift his sore, sleepy body off the bed, walk it to the main door of his flat and reach for the handle on the third try.

He didn’t really expect anything in particular, a half of his half functioning brain was still sleeping, so when he opened without checking first and saw a small, head to toe drenched girl shivering on his doorstep, nothing came from him apart from _huh?_

“Hi,” the girl greeted him with chattering teeth. Her blond hair was plastered over her forehead and around her neck and shoulders and there was an undeniable moment of _oh crap, this is why I should not watch horrors late at night_ before Alistair woke up enough to realize the girl was not a ghost but a real, living person. Standing in a puddle, in pyjamas?

“Are those pyjamas?” his brain farted out and the girl opened her mouth, stopped, closed it, looked at her clothes consisting of plaid pants hanging on her lips too loosely and a shirt with Pooh Bear on it, and then back at him.

“Yes,” she said after. “They had them on sale.”

“K,” his brain supplied unhelpfully. “Hi then.”

“Yeah, hi,” she repeated the greeting and the shivering multiplied. “Sorry to bother you. But didn’t you, um. Left your water on or… your washing machine or something?”

“Not that I know of,” Alistair turned back to the innards of his flat, and the only noise that greeted him back was the clock on the wall, ticking its minute way through the dial. It showed wrong time but he was not able to correct it for about year and half. He looked back. “Why?”

“Why do you think?” she stared at him in the dark corridor, water dripping from her Pooh Bear shirt and Alistair could swear he saw the loading icon in front of his eyes for a second, before he raised a hand and went back to the flat to check on the bathroom.

No leaks, everything was quiet and peaceful. He double checked the taps and toilet and when nothing looked even remotely broken or dripping, he returned back to the door, now almost awake.

“Nope,” he told her with a shrug. “All dry up here.”

“I see,” she stared some more, then slowly nodded. “Sorry to bother you. Thanks for looking.”

She turned around and started padding from her puddle to the elevator, leaving wet footprints in her wake. Back to the flooded flat or something? Alistair shook his head, quickly grabbed his keys and followed her.

“Wait a sec,” he dropped his voice as low as he could to be still hearable but not enough to alert the neighbours, and she looked at him with a frown.

“What.”

“Lemme look at the leak,” he insisted despite her unhappy scowl. “Maybe I can help.”

The frown deepened and the elevator dinged, the light from it when the door slid open almost blinded him. She got in, crossed her arms on her chest and sighed.

“Fine,” she motioned for him to follow her, so he did. “But since it’s not from your place, there’s no point, really.”

“Story of my life.”

She looked even more pitiful under the artificial light and unusually pale, almost sickly. He refrained from commenting on it, but it took lots of his self-control, especially when she looked at him like he had lost his mind.

Her flat was on the lower floor right under his, which made her a lucky lady, since he was rarely at home to make any sort of noise that would bother her, at least from above. The name on the bell read _Cousland_ and when she unlocked the door and opened, the smell of wet paint hit him right in the face. It took them only few steps inside towards the bathroom and he already saw the flood from there, dripping from the wall behind the bath, ruining the red coloured wall and tiles.

“Uh oh,” he let out, stepping in to assess the damage and the water under his feet splashed too loud in the otherwise quiet flat. “The pipe must have broken above there.”

“Oh no,” she walked in as well, her face horrified. “So, it’s not from somebody’s flat, it’s somewhere inside the construction?”

“Yep,” he stood up on the edge of the bath, pulling himself higher to the ceiling to see any cracks. “For now, let’s just turn off the water here. And in the morning, we call a landlord about this.”

“He’s going to kill me…” she buried her face in her hands and Alistair stepped down again to find the water lock hidden in the wall behind the toilet.

“Nah, it’s not your fault,” he said for the record, “This is an old house. He should let it checked anyway, the construction is ancient enough to remember dragons.”

“Are you a plumber or something?” he heard her asking behind him and it made him snort while closing the water with a quiet hiss. The wall stopped gushing out and he closed the lid and looked at the distressed owner.

“Wish I was, I heard the pay is good,” he shrugged, wiping his wet hands to his shirt. “But I know a thing or two about house stuff. And few other things around. And lots of things completely unrelated.”

“Right,” she shook her head and looked around at the mess on the floor. “Thanks for the help. I better start cleaning before it soaks to the neighbours…”

“Want help?” he offered faster than his common sense kicked in and that’s how it all began.

***

“-tair. Alistair!”

He almost fell off the chair when a slam on the table startled him from the definitely-not-dozing-off moment, just sheer luck managed to keep him balanced enough from meeting the floor.

“I wasn’t sleeping!” he announced in self-defence and then Duncan’s unhappy face came to his view.

“Didn’t I tell you not to stay up past midnight?” Duncan crossed his arms on his chest and Alistair realized it was already past eleven when he looked at his watch, and he somehow missed two hours. By totally not sleeping.

“Yeah, sorry,” she rubbed his eyes and fought down the yawn that threatened to overwhelm him. He still must have made weird face since Duncan’s scowl deepened.

“Wipe the drool away at least,” the dark-haired man sighed, handing Alistair a napkin out of nowhere, like an ultimate mum he was sometimes. “I’m making the roster now, you want the long shift this week or another one?”

Alistair was completely sure he did not have drool anywhere, but still used the napkin for Duncan’s satisfaction. For his defence he did go to sleep around eleven, but after the debacle with the flood he didn’t get back to sleep at all. When they were more or less done (actually less than more, the flat was in super bad shape, since apparently the leaks weren’t only in the bathroom) it was already six in the morning, so he just went home for shower and to brush his teeth and then kicked himself out to work. His eyes barely held up open during the morning meeting and he thanked whoever was above him for not dragging it for too long, or continue with a drill. He would fail so hard that Duncan would probably disown him on the spot.

“This week,” he mumbled, but then his hand shot towards Duncan’s forearm to stop him from leaving. “No, next week. Totally next week. Can’t this week.”

“Okay?” the older man glanced on the hand gripping him and then back at Alistair’s face. “Will write you up for a short one then. Something happened?”

Well, to put it mildly. The landlord was going to bark on a wrong tree, he was sure, and the girl would let him, probably, not really knowing where the real fault was. So he had a plan. Or part of a plan, at least, making it up as he went.

“Do we have my house’ construction plans by any chance?” he asked and when Duncan cleared his throat while pointedly looking at Alistair offensive hand, he finally eased off his grip with an apologetic quirk of his mouth.

“In the archive,” his mentor nodded towards the estimated location, then crossed his arms on his chest. “Why?”

When Alistair was looking for his own flat, Duncan helped him with choosing between three possible places by finding the construction plans, because if he could be labelled by anything, it would be _precautious_. _Old houses are the best_ , he would say. So they dug into plans, found the ones that looked the best in Duncan’s opinion and Alistair moved in with light heart. No problems until yesterday, but then again, not really _his_ problem, so that counted for something.

“Just want to look up the piping,” Alistair dragged himself up from the table. “I’ll be there if anything.”

“Do I look like your secretary?” Duncan hollered after him, but Alistair was already out of the room and only hitting his shoulder against two doors on his way. It was a small, meaningless victory, but victory the same.

***

He got out on the floor under his own because of some strange, unexplainable calling he heard in the back of his mind (or maybe it was his stomach because he was hungry). He wanted to stop home at first, take a shower and eat, but somehow his hand pressed the lower button in the elevator instead of his and he was glad for it, because when the door opened, he heard the angry voice of the landlord all the way to the cabin.

“Here we go,” he huffed, packing the copied plans under his arm and taking long strides toward the offensive voice that rang through the hallway so loud it was probably illegal.

“-for two months and you already flooded it?!” the landlord kept on barking, up until he came into Alistair’s view, standing in front of opened doors of the compromised flat, his stance all wide and up in arms. Alistair internally groaned.

The girl stood in front of him, dry for the first time he saw her, in a hoodie and khakis. Her hair was in a messy bun and she looked even more tired than Alistair felt.

“I didn’t flood anything,” she was saying the moment he finally stepped close enough for them to notice him. “I- oh, hey.”

“Hey,” Alistair gave her small salute and nodded towards the landlord. He saw him about twice since he started living here and kind of doubted the man even remembered his face. “Afternoon.”

“Are you here because of the leak?” the man gestured towards the flat, his eyes a little confused. “I’m sure I didn’t call firefighters though…”

 _Oh right_ , Alistair realized. He was still in the uniform, since he shot out of work without changing. Well, that worked too.

“I’m familiar with the situation,” he elaborated, making a show of looking into the flat like he was assessing the damage. He already did yesterday though and could tell it sucked balls for the repairs needed. The landlord was so not going to like it. “Looked over the construction plans, the pipes are damaged in the proximate area of the bathroom and living room. The wall needs to be torn down and the piping repaired.”

“Torn down?!” the landlord probably only by small margin avoided heart-attack, judging from his red face and the vein popping on his forehead. Alistair was glad he had the ambulance on quick dial.

“The bathroom one definitely, the water damaged it. I’d advice to have them checked as it is in the whole house, but of course that can be done through stacks for that part,” he handed one of the plans to the landlord who reluctantly took them and had to applaud himself for actually sounding serious so far. “The piping is old and rusty, random breaks happen all the time. I can point you out to a company dealing with these types of problems, though since the Christmas is coming, I’m not entirely sure how fast it’s going to be.”

The landlord opened his mouth, and then closed it. He repeated it two more times until it was apparent no words were going to come out, and then he settled on a nod.

“Great, glad we came to an understanding,” Alistair gave him a broad smile. “I’ll send you the company’s number in a text, in case you wanted to use their services. Happy to see landlords are taking care of their houses and tenants.”

Another nod from the poor man and then he was out of the hallway like a wind. Alistair wondered if he thought firefighter could actually send him to jail for disagreeing but he wasn’t going to try his luck.

“Huh,” the girl stared after the landlord even after he disappeared around the corner. “That worked like a charm. Good idea with the uniform.”

“What can I say, I aim to please,” Alistair commented and then took a step further to take her appearance in. “You’re dry.”

“Yeah, shocking,” her mouth quirked up in a smile. “I can do that sometimes.”

“I feel like I don’t even know you anymore,” he sighed dramatically but then it hit him. “Wait, I really don’t know you. What’s your name?”

“Elissa,” she introduced herself just like that, in her khakis and a hoodie and looking like she went through hell and kicked her way back, and somehow Alistair expected her to have tougher name, like Boulder or Killer.

“That’s a fine name,” he gestured towards her, to her whole appearance and the abundance of the puddle under her feet. “I’m disappointed it’s not something waterier though.”

“Waterbenders don’t have water names, you know,” she shot back and Alistair crossed arms on his chest.

“Elissa,” he tried her name and she mimicked his posture like a mirror. “As a waterbender… I gotta say, after what I’ve seen tonight, you suck at it.”

“Still learning,” she opposed. “Next time the pipe breaks, I will be ready.”

“I hope there is no next time,” he nodded towards the flat. “Don’t think it can take any more.”

That made her lose the posture as she followed his gaze and her shoulders sagged. It was a sad image, really.

“This suck,” she uttered. “It had been just two months. I have the shittiest luck _ever_.”

“As long as you don’t wind up somewhere without your pants, you’re still alright.” He took a step closer to the door, the smell of paint still hanging in the air. He noticed a packed bag resting in the hallway with a suitcase next to it and several shirts lying on the floor, soaking the moisture from it. The hallway itself looked super bad, the water completely ruined the laminate flooring, made it look like a skateboard park for snails. “Oof.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” she stood next to him, staring at the mess. “When I need a quiet place, something naturally has to go wrong. And expensive. Hope it won’t take long.”

“Yeaah, about that,” he offered her an apologetic look, even though it was not his fault, or hers, or anybody’s, and she must have understood since the groan she let out had enough frustration to lit up a town.

“You mean it’s going to take long?” she whined so loud he heard a door opening at the end of the hall, probably to look what the ruckus was.

“Well. It’s almost Christmas. And if you take in the state of the flat – and the piping – and the walls… That’s gonna take at least two months,” he checked once more, stopping at the floor. “And the flooring. And tiles in the bathroom.”

The majority of tiles fell off during their night cleaning, and most of them naturally broke in half. Elissa didn’t comment on it back then, but she definitely stomped harder when carrying the empty bucket to fill it up again.

“Okay,” she sagged even more, almost to her knees. “Alright. Okay.”

Alistair didn’t like that. Sure, he saw tons of misfortune in his life already, majority of it tied to his job and some of it not, but he couldn’t really do much about complete strangers losing their homes to fire. All he could do for them was to pat their back and wish them luck. When all of their stuff was gone.

Elissa’s stuff was not gone, but she was in similar situation. If she could at least go back to her parents or something, he’d be able to rest easy.

“You have a place to stay?” he asked in a softer tone and she nodded. Then took a deep breath. Shook her head. He took a step closer and crouched next to her. “Not even your parent’s place?”

“No,” her words were barely hearable. Then she cleared her throat and shook her head again. “I’ll manage.”

“You can stay at my place, if you want,” his mouth said.

 _Huh_.

“What?” she looked at him as if he’d gone mad (rightfully so).

“My place,” his mouth repeated. _Huh_. “I’m not home that often, it’s better than nothing?”

She had big, blue eyes. She used them in full force now, staring at him so hard he was afraid a fist was going to come out of them.

“You don’t need to do all this,” she said finally and Alistair thought _yes_ , _I don’t need to do all of this. But I do. Because you look like somebody just died, good grief._

“You woke me up at ass o’clock in the morning and kept me up all night cleaning, now I feel emotionally invested in it. Sorry, I don’t make the rules,” he responded instead, light-hearted and nonchalant, and it was the first time he saw her genuinely laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Alistair** : Oh man, so sad, Alexa, play Despacito.  
>  **Alistair's brain** : Nope, we're taking her in.  
>  **Alistair** : We wat, mate.  
>  **Alistair's brain** : WE'RE ADOPTING HER.  
>  **Alistair** : HUH.


	2. About Boundaries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> About Alistair dealing with his in-mind Tetris game. It takes effort. Elissa makes it a challenge, for sure.

Elissa had very little personal belongings to begin with, it made Alistair concerned. His amount of clothes exceeded hers (not to mention lots of her shirts stayed in the flat, soaking the water) and he considered himself fairly uninterested in clothes shopping. It was like she bagpacked into Redcliffe instead of moving in and quite frankly her bag actually looked that way (kind of dirty and battered). She didn’t even have a bed in her flat, she slept on raggedy sofa previous tenants left there and Alistair had _so many questions_ he had no idea where to start.

“I guess you don’t really need a tour in here,” he commented when she entered his home, stopped in the living room and looked around. They had the same layout of the flat but Alistair had to admit his was much more furnished, which definitely raised even more questions.

“I’m good, thanks,” she replied without moving from the spot. She still held the bag and the suitcase and Alistair watched her with worry, because this looked like a speedily approaching meltdown if he ever saw one. He approached her cautiously and when no reaction came, he tugged on her bag and it easily slid off her shoulder to his hand, so he could put it on the floor. He repeated the same thing with the suitcase, leaving her just standing there, looking lost.

“You okay?” he tried. Her eyes had that distant look in them, like she was lost in thought. “Elissa?”

“Huh?” she snapped out of it, blinked few times, and then slowly nodded. “Yeah, sure. Sorry, spaced out.”

“Wanna catch some zees?” he pointed towards the bedroom. The clock showed something past four and if she didn’t sleep either, she must have been exhausted. He knew he was. “You can use the bedroom-,”

“I’ll take the couch,” she interrupted him quickly. “Thanks.”

He had no time to actually say anything else, since she flopped on the sofa like a sack of potatoes and was out cold in three seconds.

“Sure,” he mumbled in aftermath, grabbed the blanket from the armchair and put it over her. He had a feeling she was so far the strangest thing he had ever picked up.

***

He woke up to silence. It was strange how his brain thought it must have been a mistake when up until today there was nothing else but silence every day, but somehow the unusual quiet was wrong, he just couldn’t point a finger on the reason why. He tossed around in the bed for a while, and then reached for the alarm clock to check the time.

Half past seven. _Not that bad._

His stomach was rumbling and his head hurt a little when he was crawling from under covers, and when he entered the living room, the _why is it so silent_ hit him in full force. Elissa was sitting in the corner of the couch, awake, and with a notepad on her lap on which she was scribbling something. The blanket was twisted around her legs and waist to keep her warm and her hair was loose from the bun, falling down her face and over her shoulders. Everything else was completely silent, only the pencil movement over the paper made a slight noise.

“Oh, you’re up,” she glanced at him from under long eyelashes and then focused back on the paper. “Thanks for the blanket.”

“No problem,” he shrugged, his mind slowly fitting her into his life like a slot in Tetris. She still weirdly stuck out, but hey, he only knew her for a day – not even that actually. “Feeling any better?”

“Well, at least not like passing out anymore,” she smiled into the scribble, or whatever she was creating there. “I guess we both needed to sleep a bit, huh.”

“Well, I normally don’t hear my bed calling my name so loudly, so I’d say so,” he agreed and walked through the flat until he reached her unpacked bag again. He stared at it for a while, taking in the holes and obvious over usage, and then tilted his head to the side. “So what’s your story?”

“My flat got flooded,” she answered flatly. “It was pretty bad, you know.”

“Wow, really,” he left the bag alone – bad topic, obviously – and continued towards the fridge to feed himself. “Flooding is the worst, isn’t it.”

“Can totally ruin your day. And home.”

The fridge was basically empty, and it shouldn’t have surprised him. He wasn’t grocery shopping for at least two weeks now, basically living on take outs or food he grabbed on the way to or from work, and at this moment he hated his past self so much.

“Chinese it is,” he turned around to find his phone and when he reached the middle of the living room, he couldn’t help but try to fit Elissa sitting curled up on the couch into his life again.

“What?” she raised her head, staring back at him, and then made a face. “Wait. What’s your name again?”

“ _Again_?” he made a face back at her. “How rude.”

“Should I call you Theirin then?” she shot back and the cringe that passed Alistair’s face must have looked pretty out of place. Wait, how did she even know his last name?

“You mean you know my last name but not my first name?” he crossed arms on his chest. “That’s it. We are breaking up.”

The eye roll didn’t come as a surprise. He got lots of those during his life.

“Was on your doorbell,” she gestured vaguely towards the main door to the flat. “Not my fault you didn’t put your whole name on it.”

“Not enough space,” he offered and when she still looked expectant, he lay off the jokes for the moment. “Fine, fair point. It’s Alistair.”

“Alistair,” she repeated thoughtfully. “Kind of a knightly name.”

“I wanted to be a Templar when I was a kid but my nanny didn’t approve, said math comes first,” he sighed dramatically and continued to his bedroom for the phone. “I still feel like it would serve me well. I was never big on studying, but hitting people over the head could have been my true calling.”

“I can tell,” she smirked when he reappeared in the room. “Brawns over brains, hm.”

“Ouch.”

“It’s fine, we all excel in something,” she told him sweetly and returned back to her scribbling. Alistair thought of a retort, but nothing came, so he left her victorious for now, just made a mental note to get back to it later with revenge.

“Going to order take out,” he announced instead while searching for the right number in his contacts. He should have put it in his favourites; they already knew him by his name there. “You want something?”

“Which take out?” It caught her interest. He wondered if she even ate today with all that happened to her or if she fussed around the flat the whole time. It would make sense if she did.

“Chinese.” Her eyes lit up, so it must have been a good choice. “Anything special you want?”

“As long as it’s edible, I’m game,” she put the notepad away and tiptoed towards her bag where she started to dig. “Oh god, now when you’re talking about it, I’m so hungry. Haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

“Figures,” he commented under his breath and the restaurant picked up on second ring. He ordered twice the usual and by the corner of his eye caught Elissa pulling out a wallet from the bag. Somehow it made him uneasy, so when he was answering questions about his health to the lady on the phone that spoke broken but super adorable English, he put a hand on the wallet and pushed it back to the bag, shaking his head. Elissa looked confused and tried to take it out again, which met with his resistance.

 _Why?_ She mimicked at him. _Let me pay_.

 _No way_. He mimicked back. _My treat._

She pouted and it looked so stupid he barked out a laugh, which made her pout even harder. He had to refuse the money two more times after the food arrived.

***

Elissa insisted on sleeping on the couch. He was ready to make the sacrifice and let her use the bed, but she refused so vehemently he began to suspect she was either allergic to beds or maybe traumatized by pillows. Either way her loss, his bed was nice and comfortable and the couch was not.

Well, it wasn’t _that_ bad, but still not the ideal sleeping arrangement, even though she made it look like it was the best thing to lie on. He refused to believe it (since he got the couch, he maybe sat on it twice. He had no idea why he let Anora talk him into buying it). She had her own pillow and a blanket that apparently escaped the water catastrophe but her Pooh bear shirt and plaid pants were in worse condition and Alistair took a pity on her and lent her his own shirt with a Griffon on it (but she had to solemnly swear not to drool on it which apparently offended her, since she threw it at him and then demanded it back).

They went to sleep early, despite napping over the day and Alistair somehow managed to completely forget about her in only few deep breaths once he closed his eyes. His unconscious self still remembered to be quiet in the morning the next day, but it didn’t supply why or any other context, so when he staggered outside of the bedroom in his briefs, he _was_ quiet but also oblivious, up until he finally properly woke up in the bathroom and promptly facepalmed with a loud smack.

He was not surprised when he got out of there that Elissa was staring at him from the couch, still bundled up under the blanket but perfectly awake, and he never felt more naked than now (even though he still had the briefs, which offered little comfort. Or cover. Or dignity).

“Let’s forget this happened,” he offered into the rainy morning and Elissa’s lips widened in a grin. “Please.”

“Mkay,” she just told him, which roughly translated to _nope_ , and went back to sleep.

***

“So?”

“I’m sorry, it’s probably on my chair in the bedroom.”

He already knew how disappointment on Duncan’s face looked like, and this was spitting image of it. The unhappy downturn of his mouth and the curve of his eyebrows haunted Alistair’s dreams when he got into the firefighter training at least for a month after he first saw it.

“Why did you even go home in your uniform?” Duncan sighed in obvious defeat and Alistair felt even worse. “Actually, what’s going on with you since yesterday in overall? Is there a problem?”

“Problem? What problem.” In retrospect that really did sound suspicious when Alistair’s voice cracked in the middle of it. But there was no problem, no sir. No problem at all! He expected this week to carry in similar fashion, sure, but that’d be normal with the _getting used to_ period of the new cohabitation. But nobody needed to know about it. Or about Elissa. Or about anything, really, it’s just Alistair’s private matter. The fact he left his uniform at home – or basically even that he went home _in it_ in the first place – was only an unfortunate accident. He blamed the morning’s briefs faux pas for it.

“Is something going on with the house?” Duncan, that good old man, didn’t buy it. Of course. When did he ever. “Or the piping?”

“Nope!” Another not exactly believable response, Alistair was aware. “I was just curious.”

“About the piping,” Duncan’s eyes narrowed and Alistair had an urge to avoid his eyes. But that would mean he had something to hide, so he could not. The battle with his instincts was killing him.

“Yeah, about the piping,” he nodded in frantic search for a viable excuse, but no bright ideas came when he needed them. Just Elissa grinning at him from the couch, obviously ready to serve him the incident in the face when he was going to expect it the least. He knew her only for a day but he could already see she was a worthy opponent.

On the other side, Duncan’s face told him he didn’t believe a single word. That was _fine_. Alistair was sure he was going to come up with something before another press for answers comes.

“Desk duty,” the older man announced flatly, making Alistair groan. “You brought it on yourself, boy. Now get to it. Bring your uniform tomorrow.”

“I can totally borrow another, why are you doing this to me,” Alistair protested and stubbornly followed Duncan out of the office like a dog. “Duncan, come on.”

“You obviously need to clear your head,” Duncan told him over his shoulder. He was so not getting swayed by Alistair’s puppy eyes anymore, that was not fair. “So you can start there.”

He didn’t need to say _end of debate_ for Alistair to know he lost.

***

The only bright side of desk duty was an earlier leave while not needing to clean up or help with anything in the base. Sadly, for Alistair it was more of a punishment not to busy his hands with anything, rather than taking a breather, so at the end of the shift he was sucked dry of any motivation to even lift the pen for more than abstract sketches in the corner of the paper.

On his leave Duncan still managed to send him a disapproving look and that held onto him all the way to the store, during the grocery shopping and even through the ride in the elevator. It would probably stick longer if after entering his flat he didn’t find Elissa sitting on the floor, surrounded by papers with various pencil sketches on them, looking back at him with a grin.

 _Oh no_ , he thought.

“Didn’t lose your pants today, did ya?” she delivered without mercy. Alistair was afraid to look at her work in fear he would find one sketch to depict his morning _lemme just saunter through the flat in my undies_ situation, because quite frankly she was obviously capable of doing that.

“You’re never going to let me live it down, are you,” he groaned and her grin widened even more. One day and she was already on a high horse? Good grief, since when he was such a pushover.

“Could have been worse,” she offered while he finally took his shoes off and brought groceries to the kitchen. The kitchen that never looked so… empty as it did now. Like half of things were missing.

“Did something happen in the kitchen?” he walked back to the living room with confused expression and Elissa was just stacking the papers together from the floor. There was another pile next to her consisting of pencils of all shapes and a case she probably carried them in.

“Not in few years, I wager,” she replied.

Well, yeah, Alistair wasn’t very big on cooking, true. But still. He watched her gently putting the stacked papers in a prepared folder and closing it with a click and his brows furrowed.

“It looks like stuff is like. Gone?” he glanced back towards the kitchen. “Or something. Like, things that used to be there and I usually just pushed them further when I needed space. Those are gone.”

“They are not gone,” she finished with her cleaning and stood up, still in his Griffon shirt and some loose pants of hers. Looked funny. And weirdly domestic, like in those movies about pillow wars. “I washed them and put them in a cupboard.”

“You _cleaned_ my kitchen?” he blinked in surprise and she passed him and entered the incriminated place herself, just to open one of the cupboard doors, showing the mugs and plates neatly sorted inside.

“Somebody had to do it,” she shrugged. “I’ve wanted to make tea but… I thought the kettle was going to walk away from me, obviously alive.”

“Fair enough,” Alistair cleared his throat and she started going through the groceries, putting them on the table, and then carried them to the fridge. Was weird seeing that. Actually, the whole flat was weird seeing right now, because things were neatly put on their places, the floors clean and the pillows on the couch fluffed, and he had never seen anybody doing this in his home before, it made it feel alien. He couldn’t point a finger on the exact emotion, bad or good, it just hovered in grey area, making him nervous.

“Oh,” he heard her suddenly in the hallway and before he could ask what happened, she was back with him. “I shouldn’t have done that, should I.”

“Done the-“

“The cleaning,” she added quickly, her face showing uncertainty. “I should’ve asked first. Oh man, I’m sorry if I overstepped the boundaries or something.”

Alistair had no idea what to say. He looked around again, at the small touches she left over the place he never really thought of doing, and the Tetris pieces in his mind shuffled slightly, making the shapes still stick out, but… less.

“Sorry,” she said again in much graver tone and hung down her head. She looked like a kicked puppy and Alistair couldn’t help but bark out a laugh. It apparently confused her, since she looked back up with raised eyebrows and he couldn’t blame her.

“Let’s make a deal, you minx,” he pointed at her without any power over his smiling face. “ _You_ forget about this morning and _I_ will forget about your obvious lack of sense for privacy. How about that?”

“I didn’t go to your bedroom,” she opposed, catching up on his brightening mood, since her face cleared. “I’m not _that_ brave.”

“Oho,” he crossed his arms on his chest. “Afraid of the pillows, are you. I knew that.”

“The pillows?” she waved her hand. “My dear Alistair, I saw the mess in _here_ , where you _don’t_ sleep. I know what you’re capable of. The bedroom should have a biohazard sign on it, I’m sure.”

“Excuse me, my bedroom is a sacred place,” he shot back.

“When was the last time you changed the sheets?” she mirrored his pose and crossed her arms on her chest as well.

“Last week, actually,” he smirked in victory and she smirked back.

“After how long?”

He took a breath to answer, but then he realized it would only prove her point, so he just let the air out again.

“That’s what I thought,” she scored another point, smiled at him sweetly and left him standing in the kitchen.

 _Alright,_ he thought, chuckling. _Alright. I can work with that._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Alistair** : Well, maybe it does not smell of roses, but it's habitable.  
>  **Elissa** : Is there a hole with mud in it?  
>  **Alistair** : HABITABLE.  
>  **Elissa** : BIOHAZARD.  
>  **Alistair** : Damn, I like you.


End file.
